


Zev and the Warden

by tatteredspider



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Exposition, Gen, Little Dialogue, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-04
Updated: 2014-08-04
Packaged: 2018-02-11 16:17:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2074737
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tatteredspider/pseuds/tatteredspider
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This was a short writing exercise that got away from me. While it's in 8 parts, they're small so I'm going to post them as one chapter.</p><p> </p><p>Bioware owns it all, I'm just allowed to steal to my heart's content.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Zev and the Warden

**Author's Note:**

> This was a short writing exercise that got away from me. While it's in 8 parts, they're small so I'm going to post them as one chapter.
> 
>  
> 
> Bioware owns it all, I'm just allowed to steal to my heart's content.

He watched the group approach and very nearly called off the entire ambush. Not so much because they were such a formidable group- though they certainly were- but because of...her. The woman, the Warden, didn't so much walk towards them as stalk, a lioness stalking her prey. But no, that was the point of this half-assed ambush in the first place. To lose. To fail at one of the few things he excelled at.   
To die.  
And fail he did, though not in the way he expected. It was a close thing. His hirelings were dead at his feet, her compatriots were down, unconscious and wounded. Even the other Warden, the tall lad with the golden hair and laughing eyes. It was down to the two of them, both bleeding from multiple wounds, both watching the other for an opening. And he let her take it. But instead of the stab from a blade or a lightning strike by her magic, she just pulled back and cold cocked him! He certainly hadn't expected to face the darkness in that manner.  
He woke, hogtied in the back of a moving cart. The muscles in his shoulders screaming for release, jaw pounding from the swelling bruise. He wriggled his wrists but whoever had tied the ropes was quite knowledgeable, leaving no slack with which to work. Not that it really mattered. Death by Warden or death by Crow, it was all the same.  
After a short time the cart came to a halt and a now familiar face peeked over the wooden side at him. “Well, good morning, sleepy head! How are you feeling today?”  
Brasca! Why did she need to be both beautiful and chipper?  
She climbed into the cart next to him and helped him into a seated position, slightly more comfortable, though not by much. At least now they were face-to-face as opposed to face-to-knee. He smirked. Be funny, be flirty, gain her trust. Convince her to keep you.  
Wait, what? No, the point had been to die. Hadn't it? It was the reason that he'd accepted a contract against a fabled Grey Warden. But now, tied up in the flat of a cart, pained and helpless, he looked upon this vision before him and found that he wanted to live. Desperately.  
She watched him, not speaking, deep red hair a mass of curls in the breeze, eyes the colour of Rialto Bay flashing, pale skin flushed and all he could think of was spending eternity lost in her gaze.  
“My name is Zevran Arainai. Zev to my friends...”

 

He did not understand why she let him live. His skills of persuasion aren't so good that he could seduce her over one brief conversation. At lest not with his hands tied anyway. He asked her, and she claims that there is a light in him that he could not see, but that someday, with the right guidance, he shall. And when that day comes, he will be better for it.  
She is tiny, but fierce. Small for an elf, let alone for a human. Dark red hair, wild and untamed. Blue green eyes that never quite meet your own, not out of fear but something else that he couldn't quite name. He feared her as he wanted to shelter her. It was as though she could see into his soul.  
Three weeks together now and she rarely left his side. Always looking straight ahead, ever into the future. He admired that about her. He had trouble looking for a future and was too ashamed to look to the past. So he focused on the here and now, the miniscule woman that seemed to tower over them all. He wondered what those plump ruby lips would taste like, how her porcelain skin would feel beneath his hands. She tilted her chin in his direction and smiled, as though she could discern what he was thinking.  
Then her smile vanished and her head tilted away, listening to the air. And he knew an attack was imminent. They came from the trees. Simple bandits really, not much of a threat to a group such as theirs, but Zev fought with a ferocity he hadn't felt in years, not since he was a young Crow trying to prove himself. He spun and twisted, slicing away at helpless limbs and throats, cutting through the enemy as though they were made of air. He laughed in exhilaration.  
Until he saw her fall.  
A well timed arrow took her high in the right chest, breaking her spell, causing her to scream. He turned, not sure how he made his way to her side, not really caring. He cut down the archer that hit her, viciously taking out his throat in one swipe, then stood over her fallen form, protecting her from all and sundry.  
When the bandits were finished, he bent over her. She lived, though was still, breathing shallowly. The mage, Wynne, approached and barked orders at the others. Zev held her as Alistair removed the arrow and Wynne poured her healing into the wound. The old woman nodded when she was done, stating that the Warden needed to rest. They would move a little farther, away from the corpses, and make camp.  
He would let no one else carry her, no one but the healer near her. He set up her tent and bedroll, laying her out gently, reverently. And he stayed with her throughout the night until she woke in the morning, with a hand on his and a smile in her eye.

 

He approached her at the fire as stealthily as he could, but still she heard him. Her hearing was better than an elf's! The tome she'd been lovingly tracing her fingers over as she read sat open in her lap and he peered at it in curiosity It was blank- no, no not blank, but filled with strange patterns of little bumps. She wasn't tracing the pages with love, but running her sensitive digits over the bumps.  
She was blind. Oh, not completely. She could tell you what colour your shirt was or whether it was day or night, and she could spot a darkspawn at a hundred paces, but detail was beyond her. She tilted her head towards him and he thought of asking but in the end remained silent. Whether the others had knew or not, it was not up to him to make mention of it.   
He watched the fire as she returned to her reading. When they had first met, he had sworn fealty to her, sworn to be her man, her protector, until such time as she saw fit. But now...now he would remain her protector even if he was released. She was far from helpless, he knew, and yet he could not stop the idea that she needed him. This tiny, fierce human woman with the wild mane of hair and eyes the colour of the waters of his homeland now held a place inside him. A place he had thought long dead.  
Her mabari came snuffling to her hand, looking for scratches or scraps of food, whatever he could get from his mistress. She reached out to ruffle his ears and the dog smiled. And for one brief moment, Zevran wished he were the mabari. To feel her cup his face, pet his hair, tell him how much she loved him.   
He scolded himself for such thoughts. Love was a crutch, a handicap for one such as him. Hadn't Rinna taught him that? And yet his eyes strayed to woman and beast, sitting close and enjoying each other's warmth.  
He was gathering himself to stand as she reached out and took his hand in her other, book laying forgotten in her lap. She turned towards him, smiling that brilliant smile that lit up her entire face and squeezed his fingers.   
Maker save him, but he was lost.

 

The Fade is a truly horrifying, terrible, beautiful place. Strapped to the rack of his youth, trying so desperately to become a Crow, to belong somewhere, to someone, she came for him. Bathed in an almost blinding golden light, she approached the scene, ignoring the Crows that stood before her, to be with the elf.   
She came to stand next to his head, looking him in the eye, and reached out to stroke the tattoos upon his face. It was then that Zevran realized where he was and who he was with. This beautiful creature that could see into his soul, and here, in this place, she could truly see. She smiled at his gasp of comprehension before turning to dispatch the demons that had him at their mercy. She was a goddess of flame and vengeance, obliterating her foes as though they barely existed. And then she returned to him, soft and gentle, freeing his body as she had freed his consciousness.  
And as his form drifted once again farther into the Fade, he would swear to all the Gods of Thedas that he felt her lips upon his cheek.

 

Today he fought his brother. His friend. The man that took the life of a woman he loved. And he did it without compunction. For her. And when all was said and done, she came to him, placed a hand upon his cheek, and kissed him.   
It was a soft, chaste thing. Barely the brushing of slightly chapped lips, but it was the balm he needed for his soul.

Without further thought, he reached into his smallest belt pouch and pulled it out. It was tiny, that little hoop. Gold with the tiniest chip of sapphire that reminded him of her eyes. It would look beautiful adorning her ear. 

But when tried to give it to, stumbling over his words like a besotted gutter rat, she wrapped his fingers around it and smiled in her enigmatic way. Soon, she told him. His light was not quite bright enough. 

He prayed to the Maker and Creator's that someday it would be.

 

He had never seen this look on her face before. It spoke of guilt and fear and sadness. It made the breath still in his throat and his stomach to turn. His Warden should never look like this.   
She heard him coming towards as she exited Morrigan's chambers and smiled. Or maybe she smelled him, he could never tell. The beautiful Antivan leather boots she had given him so many months ago still smelled of home. Though the more he thought about it, home was becoming wherever she was.  
He took her arm and propelled her farther down the hall. By the sounds of things, Morrigan was having an...encounter with some poor soul that would most likely regret it in the morning. She didn't need to be hearing that.   
He led her to the Arl's gardens, out amongst the night blooming flowers and the fresh smells of life. A reminder of just what they were fighting for. She smiled, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. He loved to see her smile. Loved to bring her that happiness.  
They sat there, under the moon and stars, trading tales of lives long past and dreams for a far distant future. A future that neither would probably see, but dreams none the less. He held her as she slipped into sleep against him, kissing the crown of her head with a tenderness he had never felt for another. Not even Rinna.  
The Crows would surely be laughing now if they could see the great Zevran Arainai, curled up with this wisp of a mage, loving her with every shred of his soul. But it didn't matter. He cared not a wit what they thought of him any longer, except as a threat. If they should decided to come after him, or Maker forbid after her, he would destroy them. He would obliterate every last one of them.  
She shifted in his lap and looked up at him, smiling. And told him that his light was shining so brightly. So very brightly.

 

Not dead. Maker no, not dead, but broken, bleeding. The death of the Archdemon nearly killing her, it's evil light sucking at her soul. But she still lived, cradled in his arms. He called to her, prayed to the Maker, all but accepted a deal from a demon so that she would stay with him. He cried, his tears falling to her cheeks and washing away the smears of blood there.  
Wynne came to heal her, the blue glow of her magic making the rattle in her chest disappear that he hadn't even heard. She whimpered in pain as bone knit and skin was remade. He cooed to her, saying any soothing thing he could think of. Trade, Antivan, whatever came to mind. When the mage nodded to him, he carried her down and out, to the Royal Palace. He let no one take her from him, though many tried, and by the time he was shown a room his legs were near buckling. But he would not leave her.  
Ewers of hot water and fresh clothing were brought to the room and he washed and dressed her himself, taking care of her needs before his own. The others came and sat by her for a time, The Warden King, the dispossessed dwarf, even the stoic Qunari with a mouthful of cookies. But she slept through their visits and soon enough they retired to their own rooms, their own thoughts. He stayed with her, holding her hand, brushing her forehead, kissing her cheek.  
Finally he removed the little gold earring from his smallest pouch and looked at it for a moment. Watched the light from the hearth make the gold glitter and the sapphire shine. With an almost reverent trepidation, he found a pin among the bits and pieces he had collect over the months and swiftly pierced her ear, the earring sliding into the hole right after.  
It was perfect there, glittering amongst her wild mass of red tresses. And it felt right to have put it there. He sighed and let the tears come once again.  
In time a hand reached up to brush at his cheek where the skin had been rubbed raw by his hand trying to wipe away the evidence of his fears. He looked to her, saw her smiling back at him. She touched the little hoop and the smile widened.  
“You shine,” she whispered.  
And he replied, “I love you.”

**Author's Note:**

> I originally posted this on my tumblr account : The Adventures of Selena Hawke
> 
> http://selenehawke.tumblr.com/


End file.
